


Coffee Grounds and Apple Cores

by MooseFeels



Series: In the Garden of Your Love [19]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family Drama, Garden 'Verse, gardener!dean, tw: oblique reference to sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:50:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's dad has experience with this, and the pain of it is written in his every word and smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Grounds and Apple Cores

Castiel’s dad is a lot shorter than Dean’s dad. He’s slight of frame, with dark hair. He doesn’t look much like Castiel, but Dean never looked much like his dad either, so he won’t comment. Honestly, he’s terrified to comment on anything at all. He’s terrified. He’s alone with Castiel’s father, his employer, and he’s so aware that he can sweep it all away- his life here, his brother’s life here, the happiest he’s ever been- that it’s a literal hurt.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Twenty, sir,” Dean answers.

They’re in the kitchen, and Dean is so goddamn glad that he had the presence of mind to do some dishes earlier. It looks alright, really, but they’re close in the space.

He sighs, heavily. “That’s no good,” he says.

Dean nearly crushes a glass in his hand at the statement. “Pardon?” he says.

“I’m not worried that you’re a man,” he continues. “I hope you both know that. We’ve never given a damn about that. I’m worried about your age.”

Dean nods. “Yes, sir,” he says.

“Seventeen and twenty, they’re very different…places in the mind,” he says. “I don’t want you to hurt each other, I really don’t. We’ve had trouble, in the past.”

“Gabriel,” Dean says. “He seemed to have very set opinions about this.”

Castiel’s dad nods. “It was different. I was a great deal more…adamant regarding his behavior. So they ran away, and when he came back he was not….he was hurt quite badly. He’s still hurt quite badly, Gabriel is. I can’t say what happened was his fault, though. I really can’t.”

The admission slips out of him, and the man seems to pull away from reality- to fall into some other place. He looks hollow and tired. He looks hurt.

As quickly as he’s gone, he’s back, and he smiles at Dean and says, “I’d never liked Michael to begin with. At any rate, I don’t want to totally restrict how you and Castiel interact, but I’d like to lay out some ground rules.”

The smile hides a lot. The smile hides a whole bunch of words- one word that has four letters but isn’t hurt. The smile hides terrible fear learned from awful experience. The smile is full of love in its own way though- something protective.

It’s at once familiar and foreign. It’s not something he remembers seeing much from his own dad.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Yeah, I think I can do some ground rules.”


End file.
